LG G Flex: A Self-Healing Phone

With all the Iron Man-inspired inventions slowly becoming reality, Wolverine can’t be left far behind.

Consider the starfish, yes the fish, starfish.
Regeneration is one of the most fascinating features about this specimen apart from the spectacular star-like physique.

What’s that got to do with technology? Well, technology has often sought inspiration from Nature, borrowing from it’s rather gargantuan playbook.

With the advances in technology and learning from nature, some genius scientists have figured out a way to bring regenerative capabilities (of sorts) to our handheld devices.

Pioneering such a fusion of regenerative materials and technology is LG’s latest smartphone aptly called the LG G Flex.
LG is chest-thumping their unique accomplishment in marking “done” in the check-box next to “Self-Healing Capabilities” in its spec-sheet. That’s a box that’s been previously vacant because all the manufacturers had to turn a blind eye to it, given the constraints of technology and materials.

Well, LG has cracked it. And now, you can bet your screen protector that others will promptly “learn” from the G Flex and conveniently plagiarise it, in the coming months.

A bigger question is though: Will this spell doom for the phone accessory industry?

The reality is, over time daily usage takes a toll on anything, especially devices. They face mechanical stresses and physical damage, directly or indirectly.

To improve the lifetime of their products, smartphone manufacturers have experimented extensively with materials used for phone exteriors; producing strengthed-glass backs, plastic backs, metallic backs while some boutique add-on manufacturers have gone the way of using wood and leather! However, most have held on to plastic being the basic material used for the back, sometimes being layered over to make it more appealing and durable (for example, the Nexus 4 back is composed of glass layers over a basic plastic base giving it a shimmery look).

Yet, none of them have really worked at something that fixes itself.

Reason?

Economics has it, that brands make the most money from two things: accessories (or add-ons) sales and secondly, servicing their products. That’s why manufacturers invest so much more money in establishing service centers and launch refurbishment plans, to “conveniently” replace damaged, ageing and fatigued parts, at an extremely lucrative (for them) cost.

However, disruptive technology like regeneration will drive a huge jackhammer through the after-sales revenue for manufacturers of devices as well as accessories. Simply because devices made of self-replenishing materials would be rectified sans human intervention and at no cost, the ideal rainbows-and-unicorns scenario.

Blue-sky dreaming… What if we could have a polymer that can change color when damaged and then go ahead and heal itself while becoming stronger under stress — this wish list could be a commercial reality soon.

A study at Duke University started developing a new type of plastic which responds to mechanical force called “Mechanophore”.

A scientist’s explanation would be: This plastic material is made of a Carbon backbone interspersed with Bromine atoms. However unlike other plastics and polymers, the carbon atoms in the backbone form a triangular ring instead of a straight chain, and thus any deforming force will break the ring to give a longer chain.

This rupture in the bond structure would appear as a scratch on the surface. When such a polymer is subjected to an external force, such as mechanical stress, temperature, pressure etc., the bond structure alters and deforms the polymer (this appears as scratches/cracks on our phone backs made of polymeric material).

However in some cases, the polymer deforms into its monomers, which links back up to reform the polymer chain by giving the initial polymer synthesising condition, such as heat or pressure.

Forming these new bonds is the sign of self-replenishing capabilities, which will prove to be extremely valuable once integrated with smartphone exteriors, medical and architectural equipment.

Head ringing now?

Well, in English, it means : The material is smart enough to heal the little nicks and dents on our phone so our device can remain looking new. All this without even telling you. Yippee!!

There is another breed of polymers being worked upon, that change color on deformation. Soon we could have our phones change color when they get dinged, telling us to be careful and then magnanimously forgiving our carelessness, heal themselves and revert to their original state.

Using this capability and building on this feature of polymers, LG has incorporated this feature in the G Flex. Scratch marks vanish magically, thus preserving an ever-lasting unblemished look to the phone.

The LG G Flex, already released in Korea and a few other corners of the globe, (running Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2, with 2 GB RAM powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core chipset) has astounded the technology market with its 6-inch curved Plastic OLED display and self-healing coating at the back.

The curved design has significantly shortened the distance from mouth to ear and has contributed in improving audio qualities by three decibels. The curved display has also improved the gaming and video playback perception by giving a minor 3D effect in landscape orientation. The plastic OLED has been strategically used to inculcate three sub-pixels in each pixel on the screen to provide a brighter view.

The main question echoing everyday before the launch of the Flex was how would LG stand against all the promos, and what more would it have to offer, other than the curved screen (which was the feature most promoted in the initial promos)?

The self-heal capability is truly a solid breakthrough and effectively answers that question. Videos displaying the famous replenishing tricks of the latest gadget have positively gone viral.

Experimentalists are seen brutally carving the back of the phone using anything they find handy — pocket knives, metal brushes and car keys et al, just to see if the mumbo-jumbo actually works and how long it takes for the phone back to restore itself.

Most experiments have been promising and have shown that the phone successfully eradicates all everyday marks. Deeper marks take longer to normalise, and with the right external conditions, complete healing is definitely a possibility. Rubbing (and hence providing heat to) the damaged area has proved to be a favorable condition that speeds up the healing process allowing the polymer to return to its original shape faster.

With all the Iron Man-inspired inventions (Leap motion controller, Meta, Google Glass etc.) slowly becoming reality, Wolverine can’t be left far behind.

Clumsy users can now sleep in peace. Dropping your phone accidentally is not all that dangerous now and the palpatations you experience before picking it back, well hopefully those will be replaced by a broad smile and a word of thanks to the scientists, and to Nature (try and recall the starfish too)!

Originally published at Chip-Monks.